Skydiver breaks speed of sound after jumping from edge of space

An Austrian daredevil survived a jump from a balloon more than 24 miles above earth on Sunday morning. In the process, he set a world record for the highest jump and became the first skydiver to break the speed of sound, according to various news reports.

Felix Baumgartner stepped from an enormous helium balloon that, at 128,100 feet above the eastern New Mexico desert, was at the edge of space. He wore a pressurized suit to protect his body from the near vacuum, which because of the extremely thin air, allowed his free fall to reach the speed of 690 miles per hour in the first 40 seconds according to CNN. His highest estimated speed was 833.9 mph, a would-be world record. His free fall lasted for four minutes and 21 seconds, falling a total of 119,846 ft.

It took the 43-year-old Baumgartner two hours and 21 minutes to reach the altitude. The ascent included a critical 4,000-foot stretch known as the "dead zone," during which it would be impossible for him to parachute to safety should something have gone amiss, The New York Timesreported. His balloon was made of 40 acres of ultrathin plastic that was described as an inflated dry-cleaning bag big enough to fill the Los Angeles Coliseum. It was the largest balloon ever used for a manned flight.

To prevent his body from spinning out of control during the descent, Baumgartner had carefully rehearsed a bunny hop off the capsule that was attached to the balloon. The maneuver allowed him to rotate into a headfirst position. The super thin air minimized the shock waves that are often experienced when aircrafts break the speed of sound. Scientists had been unsure what the effects might be when a human body reached such speeds. Once Baumgartner reached the ground following the opening of his parachute, he fell to his knees, then lifted his arms in victory.

During his ascent, Baumgartner's suit experienced problems with the heating system in his visor, causing it to fog up. He experienced similar problems during his fall, but they didn't seem to impede his control.

There are many more details available on the official website documenting the mission. Baumgartner spoke at a press conference this afternoon that streamed live on the Red Bull YouTube channel. Ars will update this brief if more information becomes available.

Edge of space?If I am not mistaken the Kármán line is usually taken as the border between atmosphere and outer space. At least the FAI does this, afaik. The Kármán line is at about 100km, though, not "just" a little bit below 40km.

I'd say the edge of space is not within the stratosphere, at least, which, iirc, goes up to about 50km.

So yeah, incredible jump from way higher than ever before. But probably from half the way to outer space...

Edit:By this definition of space, we might call weather balloons "the fluffy kind of space ship"

I'm glad to see things like this occur. I'm not really sure _why_, but it's just cool to see that people are still willing to jump off the Eiffel tower to test their parachute, so to speak.

Anyone know what happened to the umpteen million cubic meters (30M?) of helium from the balloon? Given that the stuff is getting pretty rare, it would be a shame to see such a chunk of it randomly released into the atmosphere.

"The super thin air minimized the shock waves that are often experienced when aircrafts break the speed of sound."

Interesting. I wonder how it "felt" when he crossed the barrier. Also didn't realize as written on wikipedia:

"In the Earth's atmosphere, the chief factor affecting the speed of sound is the temperature. For a given ideal gas with constant heat capacity and composition, sound speed is dependent solely upon temperature."

I'm glad to see things like this occur. I'm not really sure _why_, but it's just cool to see that people are still willing to jump off the Eiffel tower to test their parachute, so to speak.

Anyone know what happened to the umpteen million cubic meters (30M?) of helium from the balloon? Given that the stuff is getting pretty rare, it would be a shame to see such a chunk of it randomly released into the atmosphere.

It was the opposite of stupid, in fact. That's why he's still alive. It took a lot of planning and preparation to make this a survivable jump.

Something I don’t see mentioned is that Kittinger used a drogue chute to stabilize (and slightly slow) his fall. Whether or not this is true "free-fall" is debatable in my opinion.

He didn't use his drogue, and frankly, even if he did, what's the BFD? It's still free fall. The man pulled a crazy stunt, broke the sound barrier without the benefit of any sort of craft. Why belittle what he did?

As a former military parachutist and sometimes current civilian parachutist, hats off to Felix! Watching him take that first step off the platform and disappear almost instantly was unforgettable. You've got balls man...I'd like to think I could take that step but in reality I'd probably just puss out.

Yeah, watched the whole thing. I guess Hollywood set expectations high with all those special effects No visual representation of the sound barrier breaking

But AWESOME nonetheless.

The visible shockwave and accompanying loud bang you see in "hollywood" when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier is real. The transition often creates a pressure wave that causes sort of a cloud formation that then dissipates right away.

Something I don’t see mentioned is that Kittinger used a drogue chute to stabilize (and slightly slow) his fall. Whether or not this is true "free-fall" is debatable in my opinion.

Well no, he didn't use a drogue at least as far as the coverage and live footage showed. He had one which would have deployed automatically on excess G-force (such as an uncontrollable spin or roll), but it didn't deploy. This was mentioned several times on commentary on the live feed.

Something I don’t see mentioned is that Kittinger used a drogue chute to stabilize (and slightly slow) his fall. Whether or not this is true "free-fall" is debatable in my opinion.

Well no, he didn't use a drogue at least as far as the coverage and live footage showed. He had one which would have deployed automatically on excess G-force (such as an uncontrollable spin or roll), but it didn't deploy. This was mentioned several times on commentary on the live feed.

Other than the obvious reasons of being the first to do something there are actually good technical, research reasons to do it. We're sending people to these altitudes reasonably frequently now and research into how to survive a fall from these heights is very important.

The transition often creates a pressure wave that causes sort of a cloud formation that then dissipates right away.

The pictured effect doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the sound barrier. That's a myth. Clouds form at certain combinations of air pressure and humidity, and aircraft, as a cosequence of the way they operate, change air pressure around the wings and fuselage and water vapor often appear as clouds around them. Most common are the trails forming from the wing tips, but these can occur around other parts as well such as behind the wings at landing. Most pictures and movies of this phenomenon does not picture aircraft riding the sound barrier or passing through it, they are mearely flying in very humid conditions where clouds more easily appear. That's why you often see this around naval aircraft at relatively low altitude. This is a hot and humid area where the shifts in pressure and trmperature caused by a passing aircraft is very severe. And photogenic. I can assure you that the pilots are not allowed to pass the sound barrier where people can photograph them so easily.

Something I don’t see mentioned is that Kittinger used a drogue chute to stabilize (and slightly slow) his fall. Whether or not this is true "free-fall" is debatable in my opinion.

He did not deploy his drogue chute since he was able to stabilize the flatspin on his own. They say so in the press conference.

Edit: formatting

Kittinger, not Baumgartner.

(sorry, I just noticed that someone already corrected this earlier)

Quote:

He didn't use his drogue, and frankly, even if he did, what's the BFD? It's still free fall. The man pulled a crazy stunt, broke the sound barrier without the benefit of any sort of craft. Why belittle what he did?

As a former military parachutist and sometimes current civilian parachutist, hats off to Felix! Watching him take that first step off the platform and disappear almost instantly was unforgettable. You've got balls man...I'd like to think I could take that step but in reality I'd probably just puss out.

It matters because Baumgartner missed the record for the longest freefall, held by Joe Kittinger, by just a few seconds.

He could have used a drogue to slow and extend his fall after breaking the supersonic record but chose not to.

When the IT Security Editor authors such a piece, should we be concerned?"Space-Launched Skydivers Attack Facebook Servers!"

Seriously, I had read that his jump had been scrubbed, earlier in the week - Thursday, I think. Glad to read that they/he just rescheduled and went for it. They had apparently hoped to tie it in with the balloon fiesta here (Albuquerque), so the timing still worked, as today is the last day of the fiesta. Can't blame them for wanting that association and exposure.

I find it somewhat nice that despite all the records that were broken today, Kittinger got to see his own record for longest freefall stand. Kittinger also did a great job talking Baumgartner through the final minute or two, you could see that Baumgarner was almost shitting himself, but he pulled through and did it. All around it was pretty breathtaking to watch.

Something I don’t see mentioned is that Kittinger used a drogue chute to stabilize (and slightly slow) his fall. Whether or not this is true "free-fall" is debatable in my opinion.

Well no, he didn't use a drogue at least as far as the coverage and live footage showed. He had one which would have deployed automatically on excess G-force (such as an uncontrollable spin or roll), but it didn't deploy. This was mentioned several times on commentary on the live feed.

Why would Australia be proud here? ...Felix Baumgartner is Austrian, not Australian. Totally different continent ;p

Hey, now. Hold on there, hoss. The Australians can be proud if they wanna be.

We'll claim him and stand proud anyway. Hell, we do it all the time with New Zealanders (apologies to the Kiwis out there). When I was a kid 'Australian' was often misunderstood to be 'Austrian' internationally . I'm proud that perhaps now it's starting to go the other way.

Mariana trench, Mars Rover landing, and today a supersonic man. Isn't it amazing how humankind still finds ways to push the boundaries of achievement and exploration when the traditional frontiers have long gone. Like attaining knowledge for the sake of it, pulling a stunt like this when no-one has before is worth it for no other reason than 'because it's there'.Kudos to Baumgartner and his team.

But WHY keep on with the mph, ft and all the rest silly imperial units that's ridiculously hard to count in any science.. and not the rather easy linear logical Meter, Kilogram and so on... Y'know the metric scale used by most of "modern" world... Sigh.. (And part of it is that I have to count to get what speed you're talking about but it's even worse when it comes to temperature scale...)